TY  - EJOU
AU  - Murthy, A. Ramachandra  
AU  - Iyer, Nagesh R.  
AU  - Prasad, B.K. Raghu  

TI  - Fatigue Crack Growth Study and Remaining Life Assessment of High Strength and Ultra High Strength Concrete Beams
T2  - Computer Modeling in Engineering \& Sciences

PY  - 2012
VL  - 89
IS  - 6
SN  - 1526-1506

AB  - This paper presents the details of crack growth study and remaining life assessment of concrete specimens made up of high strength concrete (HSC, HSC1) and ultra high strength concrete (UHSC). Flexural fatigue tests have been conducted on HSC, HSC1 and UHSC beams under constant amplitude loading with a stress ratio of 0.2. It is observed from the studies that (i) the failure patterns of HSC1 and UHSC beams indicate their ductility as the member was intact till the crack propagated up to 90% of the beam depth and (ii) the remaining life decreases with increase of notch depth (iii) the failure of the specimen is influenced by the frequency of loading. A "Net K" model has been proposed by using non-linear fracture mechanics principles for crack growth analysis and remaining life prediction. SIF (K) has been computed by using the principle of superposition. SIF due to the cohesive forces applied on the effective crack face inside the process zone has been obtained through Green's function approach by applying bi-linear tension softening relationship to consider the cohesive the stresses acting ahead of the crack tip. Remaining life values have been have been predicted and compared with the corresponding experimental values and observed that they are in good agreement with each other.
KW  - Ultra high strength concrete
KW  -  characterization
KW  -  fatigue loading
KW  -  Tension softening
KW  -  Stress intensity factor
KW  -  crack growth
KW  -  remaining life

DO  - 10.3970/cmes.2012.089.459